


Always the Valeyard

by ellbie



Series: Always [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Valeyard!Thirteen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24408865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellbie/pseuds/ellbie
Summary: The Valeyard only has one thing to do before she leaves this universe forever: kill the Doctor, once and for all.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), The Master/The Valeyard (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: Always [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1762657
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Valc0's Valeyard!13 headcanon and this ask: https://valc0.tumblr.com/post/618842661034557440/bit-of-an-angsty-headcanon-but-what-you-said-about

“Doctor, we just got word,” a terrified voice hissed from the other side of the room. “The Valeyard is here. She’s heading toward the Needle.”

He sighed, brushing his dark bangs out of his eyes and letting his head fall back in a silent prayer for patience. No matter how many times he tried to command Miylas otherwise, she insisted on calling him that name. Apparently the mixup was a side effect of traveling in a blue police box and accidentally saving a civilization or two.

The few visible stars overhead twinkled silently, offering no consolation.

 _Three,_ he thought. _Two…One._

And, as they did every 827 years, faint tendrils of an aurora began to bloom, signaling the beginning stages of the geomagnetic reversal of the planet Na’y’s north and south poles. Silent green flames lapped at the massive window in front of him and flowed around the tops of the skyscrapers stretched out beneath him.

The event was beautiful and normally innocuous, drawing excitable tourists from both hemispheres. In fact, had the man not been a Time Lord, he'd probably be "ooh"-ing and "aah"-ing at the pretty colors, completely unaware of the fixed point that pinned this specific occasion to the time stream.

Although, if he weren't a Time Lord, he'd like to think he'd be viewing the aurora at the northern pole. During his school days, he’d read that the lights there were purple instead of green, and even as a kid, he’d always had a soft spot for purple.

He was tugging absently at the cuff of his sleeve when the colors seemed to erupt, bathing everything in striking emerald. Standing at the top floor of the Needle, the tallest building on the planet, afforded a glorious view of the lightshow, which reflected back up to him from every sparkling, crystalline surface of the southern capital. Even the face of the red crescent moon had been swallowed up by the glow.

Buildings extended to the horizon in every direction, most of their windows dark, the population having been evacuated from the aptly named Mirrored City of Na’y in the days leading up to the planetary event. Not that it would make a difference when the impending paradox tore the universe in half, but when he’d tried to explain this to the Na’yian citizens, there’d been quite a lot of screaming and weeping and panicking. So he decided to just let them believe that the outskirts of the city would be plenty safe from the fatal rip in reality, which would cut straight through the main thoroughfare where the Valeyard had just been spotted.

Sadly, lying was another decidedly Doctor-y trait, and they had immediately begun preparation for a parade in the Doctor’s honor.

There was a large brass compass mounted to the wall to his right, and its magnetized needle began to move erratically. He hadn't expected the lights to go on this long and wondered if maybe his hunch had been wrong. Only a few more minutes and the poles would switch, and timelines spanning all of reality would converge here, flowing through the fixed point before continuing happily along, branching out harmlessly this way and that.

A second before the needle stilled, he felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle. A quick glance at the wall, and he saw the compass was pointing in the same direction as before. The aurora stuttered, and the glowing green flames died out, leaving just the black void of sky, a smattering of stars, the red slice of moon, and an eerie quiet.

The poles weren’treversing.

“Oooh,” he said out loud. “I get it.”

A voice broadcast through the PA system of the building and similarly echoed through every other speaker in the city.

“ _Bring me the Doctor.”_

Her voice sounded strange and hollow, like the airy laugh had been carved out of it.

He took a breath.

“Doctor?” Miylas had drawn nearer, and now her voice piped quietly from directly over his shoulder.

He turned away from the wall of windows and marched past her without speaking.

The elevator door was already open when he approached, and he stepped inside quickly, dipping his head as he pressed the button for the ground floor. He kept his gaze averted until the doors slid shut and the cab began its rapid descent. He’d had his fill of the looks the aliens of this civilization we’re giving him. 

Too much hope in their eyes.

Fortunately, the drop afforded him some time to think, as the Needle was 200 stories tall. Unfortunately, he wasted a majority of the time nervously tapping his foot, jumping up and down, checking his hair in the reflective wall to his left, and willing his ears to pop. He also started burning a rude note into the floor with his laser screwdriver but only managed to write “The Doctor Is A” when he was interrupted by the cab reaching the bottom of the shaft. 

Ah, well. If anyone was still alive to read it later, they’d probably be able to fill in the blank with a choice word or two.

The doors slid open to Yasmin Khan, who was waiting just where he’d left her, arms wrapped tightly around herself, hands clasped over the elbows of the too-big puffy coat she’d salvaged from the TARDIS wardrobe. Despite most of the lights in the lobby being out, her reflection still shimmered in the glassy, tiled floor.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Just stay inside until I call for you,” the Master muttered as he shouldered past. 

She let out an affronted huff and a “Wait—!”, but he didn’t break stride. 

The entrance to the building was a massive, flat pane of glass, and as he approached, horizontal seams appeared, dividing it into equal sized sections. The panels slid up along tracks that arched up and back into the vestibule, like a clear wave on the verge of breaking. A wash of chill, night air flowed into the building, and he filled his lungs with as much of it as he could, hoping the pressure in his chest would force his hearts to slow.

The Needle was erected right in the middle of the city center, and the Valeyard had just made it to the edge of the plaza, her feet crunching over the dusting of frost. Sometime in the last year, she’d ditched her bright colors and that blinding smile, and now strode toward him with all the remaining light of a faltering ember in drab clothes and a tattered, slate grey coat. The nighttime darkness nearly swallowed her small figure up.

He swallowed. For all of his careful planning, he still wasn’t quite happy with the outcome of his whole “Timeless Child” reveal, but he really didn’t have anyone to blame besides himself anymore, considering he’d killed everyone else that had been complicit (and the entire rest of the Gallifreyan population, just to be sure). He’d _wanted_ to break the Doctor, and he had. But somehow she still managed to turn his successes against him.

“Ah,” the Doctor… er, the _Valeyard_ said quietly, voice no longer carrying over the PA, “There you are.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've intentionally slowed down on writing and posting in the last week to focus on supporting the Black Lives Matter movement in my city. Since I did want to get a small update out, I figured I'd be remiss not to include a shoutout to <https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/>, which includes lots of ways you can help fight the good fight against racism. So as not to artificially increase the comment count on this story, my tumblr is now linked in my profile in case folks want to share other resources. I can include them as author's notes if anyone wants a signal boost. 
> 
> And if anyone has recs for Black or non-Black POC authors on this site, shoot me a DM with links to their fics (@linz33y), and I'll read and comment! Self-promotions are absolutely encouraged :)

Remains of the doomed planet hung about in thick plumes of smoke, clogging the air. The Master’s cheek was pressed into the dirt, and he coughed, sending up a swirl of dust that joined the flakes of ash snowing down around him. The reddish sand stuck to his sweat-drenched face as he got his hands back under himself, arms shaking as he strained under the oppressive, blazing sunlight. It’d been an hour since his legs gave out from exhaustion, but he continued dragging himself across the earth, hoping his respiratory bypass would hold out. Just a bit further, and then he’d be safe.

“I honestly didn’t expect to find you here.”

He startled and jerked his head around, only to find the Doctor, standing stark and bright against the smoldering remains of Gallifrey, frowning down at him, her words edged with remorse. 

So she’d escaped the death particle too. 

There was a twinge of relief in his chest, and a cloud passed overhead, the shadow offering brief respite from the heat while the Master’s oxygen-starved brain sluggishly puzzled through the strangeness of her presence. “You look…” He swallowed, blinking rapidly to make sure she wasn’t a mirage. “You look… _ridiculous_.”

Her fingers moved self-consciously to the breathing apparatus clipped to the bridge of her nose, and she cleared her throat. “I just popped back to say goodbye,” she said, letting her hand sweep out behind her, indicating a lone boulder that stood a short distance away. 

It must’ve been the TARDIS his scanners had picked up when he’d clawed his way out of the wreckage of the Citadel, the one he’d been hoping to escape in. 

He squinted at it. 

_A functioning chameleon circuit?_

“That’s not…”

She nudged the toe of her boot against some rocks, pushing trails through the umber earth. “Got a new one. Well, it’s the one I escaped in, so I figured I’d keep it. You did always say the Type 40 was only fit for the junk heap, what with the chameleon circuit being broken since I got it. Not to mention the half-a-platoon of Judoon that just barged right in not too long ago. Right past the shields and everything! Arrested me on the spot, too. 

“Oh, did I tell you,” she asked, a genuine smile lighting up her face, “that I just broke out of prison? Probably not that surprising. The breaking out part, that is. Also, the getting arrested part. Although, won’t lie, caught me a bit off guard, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Let’s just say I picked up a few handy prison-escaping tricks from a friend.” Still grinning, she shoved her hands into her pockets and rocked on her heels, bent nearly in half by a giddy excitement too big for her body. “It was Houdini,” she said, the brag all but bubbling out of her, “in case that wasn’t obvious. Taught me all he knew, he did. Well, I taught him a few things too. Like about space and time travel, for a start.”

The Master continued to pin her with a stony glare until her smile faltered and fell back into a frown. The sparkle in her eyes dulled, and the cloud sailed by overhead, plunging them back into the stifling heat that soaked straight through to his bones.

“Anyway, erh… Guess I’ll be off then.”

She turned and walked toward the disguised timeship, leaving the Master to gape after her retreating form. 

“I do hope you’re not intending to _leave_ me here, Doctor!”

That brought on another coughing fit, and he instantly regretted shouting.

The woman hesitated, chin drawing in protectively, hands gripping into fists at her sides. Then the tense line of her shoulders softened, and a tentative calmness sifted through her as she turned her face up toward Gallifrey’s twin suns. “Don’t call me that.”

“But... it’s your... _name_ ,” he gasped. “Or have you... started to lose it... in your old age?”

She was back in front of him in an instant, hauling him up by his dirty lapels and leaning into his face. “The Doctor is gone,” she hissed. “You saw to that.”

He struggled against her grip, shoving weakly at her wrists, but she held firm, finally giving him a rough shake to make him stop. They glared at each other for a beat, the Master huffing and puffing, the Doctor steely and calm, before a flash of something like fear or regret shot through her features. Eyes going wide, she dropped him to the ground and ducked her head, not bothering to look at where he fell to his hands and knees.

“I need to find out who I really am,” she muttered. “Not what the Time Lords made me into.”

Turning on her heel, she strode back toward her new TARDIS. A door on the rock face slid open silently, and she disappeared inside. The Master kept crawling, dragging himself toward his last means of escape, even as he heard the locking mechanism activate and the engines roar to life. He kept crawling, fingernails digging into the dirt until he collapsed an arm’s length away from the empty patch of dust where the ship had dematerialized, not quite believing it was gone.

But it was gone, along with the Doctor, and not for the first time in his lives, he was left alone amongst the burning rubble of his homeworld. Abandoned by his oldest friend. Again.

His CyberMasters were dead, his TARDIS was dead — the organic material in both irreparably destroyed by the death particle blast, but fortunately not before his ship’s defenses were able to spare him — and he wondered how long he’d have to wait until the Doctor’s sense of guilt and moral superiority kicked in and she turned back to save him. He sucked in another insufficient breath, incensed at the thought of Gallifrey's thinning atmosphere — ruined when the death particle _also_ destroyed all remaining plant and microbial life on the planet — suffocating him. He'd been brilliantly escaping the wrath of the Time Lords since he defected and became a renegade thousands of years ago, and now, finally, their home planet, which couldn't even manage to stay not-burnt-to-the-ground for any appreciable amount of time anymore, was going to kill him. If there was a lesson in all this, he petulantly hoped he regenerated before he learned it.

As if on cue, the wheezing of temporal engines sounded again and a ship began to waver like fog in the place the TARDIS had just vacated.

 _That was fast_ , he thought. He squinted as the machine materialized, eyebrows shooting up when it phased fully into reality. “Umm…”

The Doctor’s blue police box stared down at him, and he stared right back at it, not daring to blink in case the ship spooked and ran or his hypoxic brain decided it was a hallucination. But, real or not, he wasn't one to look a gift TARDIS in the mouth. He scrambled forward without another thought, huffing in relief when his palm made solid contact with the wooden doors, choking down a sob when they swung open, unlocked. He tripped and fell inside, not caring when his knees banged into the smooth floor at the base of the raised platforms where the central console sat, dragging in lungful after lungful of cool, clean air.

The doors slammed shut behind him, and even as his vision began to dim, he made sure to wait for the sound of the lock engaging before he passed out.


	3. Chapter 3

Exactly twenty-two minutes later, the Master jolted awake, face peeling away from the puddle of drool that had collected on one of the glowing hexagon tiles in the floor. He squinted at the illuminated shapes, his eyes scanning blearily along the path they formed from the door to the steps that led to the controls. He pushed himself up, wincing as he settled back on his banged-up knees before grabbing for a handhold in the wall and hauling himself into a standing position. The gentle vibration of the idling engines thrummed around him, tingling over his skin as he swayed briefly before steadying himself and letting his scowl pass over the console room.

It’d been almost 80 years in his personal timeline since he’d first seen this version of the space, back when he was still disguised as “O”, the bashful ex-MI6 agent.

He grumbled as he approached the central column, warily eyeing the giant, crystal monstrosity of a time rotor. The craggy support structures jutted up around it then curled in toward the center of the main platform, like the legs of some upended, dead spider. Above the dematerialization controls, a white sand streamed softly through a large hourglass, the soft blues and oranges from the surrounding lights reflecting off the delicate glass in odd juxtaposition to the grunge of bulky levers and taps jutting out of the oil-dirtied panels.

“Wonderful,” he scoffed, nose wrinkling in distaste as he closed the rest of the distance to the console. “Still _steampunk,_ then?” 

Sparks of aversion buffeted at the edges of his mind, as if the ship was telepathically sneering back at him. The Master’s eyes flicked over to the coordinate controls, trying to get an idea of their waypoint before the Doctor’s mess of a TARDIS had a full-on mood swing and decided to eject him, but he was only able to glean that they were no longer on Gallifrey before the displays went dark.

“Where are we?” he demanded, flipping a few switches and turning some dials in hopes of waking up the screens, but his angry glare was the only thing reflected back to him. He glanced down to where a custard cream sat cradled in a dispenser, eyebrow arching primly. “What, no Jelly Babies?”

The dispenser snapped shut, disappearing flush against the underside of the panel as the TARDIS squirrelled the treat away with an equal air of snootiness. The Master pinched the bridge of his nose and heaved a sigh.

“I have had just about enough of your attitude.” He slammed his palm down on the panel and glowered at the massive crystal machinery before him. “Now tell me _where we are._ ”

The doors unlocked with a pointed _click_ , and the Master threw his head back in frustration. “ _Fine,_ ” he grumbled, slouching to the exit. “Be that way.”

He tried squinting out the windows first, but the ship only gave off a small radius of light. Everything else was veiled by darkness. Unsure if they had landed on a planet at night, or in some pitch black room, he gave the door a rough shove open and jumped back, waiting for an alarm to sound or a guard to shout or a wild animal to barge in, anything to get his bearings. 

But nothing happened. 

He paused for a moment before sticking his head out just enough to gauge his surroundings, throwing cautious glances left and right. It appeared that they were parked up against the wall of a darkened, narrow corridor. Faint little lights twinkled red, blue, and yellow in the walls, and he frowned at them until his eyes adjusted, realizing quickly they weren't walls at all. Metal scaffolding towered on either side, stacked high with blinking machines. The Master stepped fully out of the safety of the TARDIS and approached one, resting his hand against it. The casing vibrated under his palm as the computer’s internal fans blasted warm air out of the vents on the sides to regulate temperature, adding to the white-noise hum blanketing over everything, muting any other noises. 

“A cold-storage data warehouse,” he mused. “Ancient tech, and slow to access. Whatever’s archived here, it’s been here for a long, long time.” 

Unlike his laser screwdriver, his TCE idn't have a setting to start a remote download of the data. Come to think of it, where had he left his laser? He wondered absently if the TARDIS would grant him access to any of the labs so he could make a new one. Tilting his head back to gaze up at the stacks of machines, he tried to calculate roughly how many servers were in the vicinity when one of the computers behind him exploded, the blast sending smoke and sparks everywhere.

He pitched forward, colliding head-first into the edge of the metal shelf in front of him with a bitten off shout. Ignoring the swelling pain of the bruise forming, he scrambled back to the ship. He threw his body at the doors, but they didn’t budge.

“Let me in!” he screamed, ramming his shoulder into the unmoving wood in a fit of growing rage. The faint light inside clicked off, plunging him into darkness. He didn’t even have time to blink before another blast erupted to his left, missing his ear by an inch. He dropped to the ground, grasping blindly with his hands until he managed to crawl to relative safety behind the ship. Leaning his back against the wood, he panted hard while he waited for his eyes to adjust. He peeked back around the side, looking for any indication of who was shooting, but all he saw was the rows and rows of faintly blinking machines, eventually swallowed up by darkness in either direction. Just as he felt his heartsrate returning to normal and the ringing in his ears beginning to quiet, a blonde blur of a woman darted past.

Sure, they hadn’t been exactly close in their current incarnations, but there was something nostalgic about seeing that daft Time Lord running away from him. So much so that it quelled some of the previous anger in his chest. Not all of it, but some.

“ _Doctor?!_ ” he shouted, legs already back under him as he took off after her. The Doctor didn’t slow, but fortunately for the Master, the newest burst of adrenaline pumping through his system meant he closed the gap and tackled her to the ground with ease.

She jerked her arm back, trying to elbow him in the head, but he grabbed her wrist out of the air and twisted, wrestling her hand up to pin it between her shoulder blades. Her sonic screwdriver clattered to the ground.

Using his weight to hold her down, he squinted at the display on the side of the device. It appeared to be in the process of decrypting something. 

“Oh, dear,” he purred. “Are you _stealing_ sensitive information?”

She wriggled in vain, unable to free her trapped arm, finally yelling in frustration. "Let me go! And stop following me!" 

"Following you?" he snapped incredulously. "Believe me, I have better things to do."

"Then why," she gritted, collapsing in an unmoving heap beneath him, "are you here?"

He stilled, realizing he'd been wondering the same thing, and she took advantage of the moment’s pause to drive her head back, the crown of her skull making solid contact with his face. He heard the sickening crunch of cartilage before he felt any pain and was briefly aware of the smell of her hair before it was overtaken by the metallic stench of blood. He groaned and fell back, instinctively releasing her arm to grab his bleeding nose. The other Time Lord reached for her sonic, but he was quick to kick it out of the way, sending it skittering under one of the server racks. She swore, seemed to debate for a moment, then took off running again without it.

“Oh, do you really have to thieve and run?” he shouted, crawling quickly over to the rack and reaching under up to his shoulder, hand grasping over the dusty floor until his fingers closed around the screwdriver. He stuffed it in his pocket, huffing when he realized the woman’s footsteps had already faded to nothing. “Doctor, I’m not done with you!”

“ _Sco bo tro no flo jo ko fo to do!_ ” a voice barked.

The loud, electronic hum of equipment must have muffled the heavy fall of boots, because the voice shouted suddenly and so very near that he froze mid-standing, hands immediately going up to signal surrender. 

“I, erh…”

 _“Turn around,”_ the harsh voice bellowed, the rough language, untranslatable by the TARDIS, grating on his ears.

He straightened the rest of the way slowly and spun to face them, using one hand to shield his vision from the bright beam of light assaulting his eyes.

“Would you mind turning that off?” he said with a wince. He waited until the flashlight was set upright on a nearby shelf, illuminating the narrow stretch of corridor before speaking again. “Hey, fellas,” he began, flashing a winning smile at the seven Judoon soldiers now standing between him and the Doctor’s TARDIS. “You must be the ones shooting all over the place. Interesting choice of weapon, considering our surroundings appear to be… valuable.”

The stench of fried electrical components hung heavy around them, the occasional _zap_ and _pop_ sounding from the damaged machines.

The commander, the only one without a laser pistol aimed at him, stepped forward with a bioscanner. The small device blipped as it took his reading.

“ _Time Lord DNA,”_ the commander reported. _“Potential fugitive.”_

“You know, no one talks about what a romantic language Judoon is,” the Master said, still grinning. “All those ‘ _oh-oh-oh’s_.” He winked.

The commander glared at him. Or continued to glare. It was really hard to tell what their resting expression was, and he had no clue if Judoon facial muscles even allowed for smiles.

“ _We will escort you to your confirmation scan_.”

“On what charge?”

“ _Escaping your prison sentence.”_

The Master groaned, remembering what his best enemy had told him on Gallifrey. “Listen, I’m _not_ the Doctor. That woman that just ran past was the Doctor. She’s the one you want.” He gestured to the now-empty hall behind him.

The Judoon commander turned around, then back to face the Master. “ _You are traveling in the Doctor’s ship.”_

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I’m the Doctor, does it?” he said, not bothering to hide the patronizing tone in his voice. “Look, the ship is telepathic, and it’s locked me out.” He kept his hands raised, palms out, and slowly stepped through the crowd toward the TARDIS. When he was in front of the doors, he turned back to the seven pairs of eyes and six guns all trained on him. “Now, if I were the Doctor, my own ship wouldn’t prevent my escape, would it?”

There was a soft click of the door unlatching, and he turned, eyebrow raised, and watched as it slowly swung open.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be...” He dragged his hand down his face and turned back to the officers. “Look, I can expla—”

Six laser pistols whirred as they charged up.

“ _Verdict: guilty. Sentence: execution.”_

“Naturally,” he said with a grimace as he scrambled into the ship. The doors closed promptly behind him, a split second before the weapons discharged, colliding with blue wood instead of the space where his head had just been.

He gripped at the sonic in his pocket to confirm he hadn’t lost it before turning his attention to the cavernous ceiling and stalking toward the controls. “Did I ever apologize for turning you into a paradox machine?” he called out, pulling a nasty face. “No? _Good_.” 

But if the TARDIS was listening, she didn’t seem bothered.

The temporal engines began to groan, drowning out the Judoon shouting outside, and before the Master could shout “Where are you taking me now?!”, they’d dematerialized again.


End file.
